Professional Ethics in Counselling

This course will examine the principle themes and issues impacting professionals in pastoral care and counselling and marriage and family therapy who are currently working in a variety of agency, institutional, or private practice settings. A number of codes of ethical practice will be studied and compared, such as the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care (CASC, formerly CAPPE), the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT/OAMFT), and the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA). The main purpose of the course will be to foster a deepening sense of the essential nature of ethical reflection, conduct, and accountability to clients and professional associations through lectures, case discussions, and shared reflections on video materials. Evaluation: class participation, alternating weekly reflection papers and online quizzes, major paper.

This course has been pre-approved by the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care (CASC) as fulfilling the ethics requirement for certification programs in Supervised Pastoral Education Certification (CPE & PCE).